


Stone and Shifting Sea

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Magical Transition, Nonbinary Character, Worldbuilding, fantasy linguistics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-26
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-28 10:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30138294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: This was it, Eshvareth thought as xie carefully walked down the slick slate slab leading to Ichtheia Fleshcrafter’s lair. The end to years of travel, and the answer to a question xie had barely been able to form when xie had left home.Now, all that remained was entering the lair and seeing if xir story fulfilled Ichtheia’s demands.
Kudos: 1
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2021





	Stone and Shifting Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skatzaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/gifts).



> Your requests about trans worldbuilding made my brain go !!! :) I hope you enjoy this take on those prompts!

This was it, Eshvareth thought as xie carefully walked down the slick slate slab leading to Ichtheia Fleshcrafter’s lair. The end to years of travel, and the answer to a question xie had barely been able to form when xie had left home.

Now, all that remained was entering the lair and seeing if xir story fulfilled Ichtheia’s demands. 

Eshvareth swallowed as xie reached the end of the stone bridge and looked up at the nacreous entrance now blocking xir way. Ichtheia’s lair had been built, legend said, from a single giant nautilus shell. When xie had first heard the story, Eshvareth hadn’t quite believed it; inland as Ternion was, xie’d grown up only ever seeing the little shells sold as jewelry from the Crysahath Sea.

Standing here, a thousand miles from home and gazing upon the lair itself, xie understood where the stories came from and believed them.

The entrance was an arch twice as tall as Eshvareth xirself—and xie wasn’t short by orc standards, let alone compared to the rest of Malthea—and was set into the ocean’s waves such that the bottom curve wasn’t visible at all. As xie had descended the seaside cliffs (grateful that a childhood clambering across mountains had given xir skills that helped on these slippery stones), Eshvareth had been able to see the whole white-brown spiral of the shell laid out, a peninsula in its own right.

If the legends were true, xie thought, stepping closer to the leathery curtain blocking off the lair, then Ichtheia herself had killed the being who had once lived here and made its shell into her home.

No wonder even the greatest mages of the continent paled at the thought of contending with her.

Eshvareth laid a hand on the curtain and said, awkwardly, “Uh, hello.” Xie still didn’t really feel comfortable speaking in Malthean Tradetongue, but xie was mostly fluent after so much time speaking it in their travels, and it seemed more polite than talking in xir native Ternish. “I’ve been told that Fleshcrafter Ichtheia could help me. May I come in?”

The leather lit up with a bewildering array of light.

Eshvareth might not be a mage, but xir travels had brought them into close contact with plenty of them—for good and ill both, and so xie could recognise a few symbols. They had some extra lines compared to the modern versions, but _Body_ and _Soul_ were repeated a lot, often in close proximity. A few others seemed like they were something about power, or energy; Eshvareth had never bothered figuring out what the difference was to mages. Xie preferred the sureness of steel in xir hand, and the comfort of objects crafted by mundane means.

The curtain warmed, feeling almost like living flesh, and then rippled underneath Eshvareth’s hand. Xie jumped back in shock, hand automatically going to the sword at xir side. Eshvareth didn’t draw the blade, though, because by the time xir fingers closed on the hilt xir brain had caught up and realised that the curtain was drawing back like it was alive.

“Thank you,” Eshvareth said to the empty space, and forced xirself to let go of xir sword. It wouldn’t matter against a being as powerful as Ichtheia, anyway; she was at least halfway to being a god, and could probably crush Eshvareth with a single finger and no thought at all. Hopefully she wouldn’t. That would be an unfortunate end.

A string of pearls, each as large as Eshvareth’s head, illuminated the interior with pale light. It wasn’t as creepy as walking into a ghost valley—as Eshvareth knew from unfortunately personal experience—but Eshvareth was still cautious. Xie stepped carefully onto the thin stepping stones that rested just above the water’s surface. Every element felt like a concession to the needs of land-dwellers, which made sense; Ichtheia was a mer herself, so why would her place of power cater to those with feet instead of fins?

Eshvareth was grateful, too, that the waters within Ichtheia’s lair were calm. Xie had almost been washed away once as xie’d travelled down the pathway here, and didn’t want to repeat that experience. Instead, the inside of Ichtheia’s lair was calm, and quiet, and gave Eshvareth absolutely no clues as to how far xie had progressed or how far xie had yet to travel before xie would reach the spiral’s end and Ichtheia herself.

Magic could expand small spaces or make large objects fit into tiny bags, but after thirty minutes, Eshvareth still felt like maybe xie had been walking too long. Xie kept pushing forward anyway for another half an hour out of sheer stubbornness, because sometimes determination _was_ the answer, but nothing fundamentally changed.

Eshvareth stopped, glanced backward—the first time xie had done so—and saw, just at the edge of the curve, the curtain xie had crossed to reach here.

This had to be a test.

“I’m not going back,” xie said, dropping from the too-fluid sounds of Malthean Tradetongue for the Ternish’s stone-roughened syllables and far-ranging whistles. Magic wouldn’t care what language Eshvareth spoke, and xie could speak xir mind faster and more truthfully in xir native tongue. “I came here for a reason, and if I had wanted to turn back I would have done so during the journey here. I know the mountains and oceans are far apart. I know you have no reason to care for me, but I am here, and I do not intend to leave without finding what I seek.”

A laugh echoed through the luminous hall, and the lights flickered for a moment before extinguishing completely.

Eshvareth stood xir ground, keeping xir eyes fixed forward and waiting.

When the lights returned, Eshvareth saw that the walls’ spiral had sharpened, and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” xie said, because it paid to be polite to mages, and advanced.

The spiral led xir downwards, yet the water always stayed a bare centimeters below the surface of the stones Eshvareth walked upon. It was a beautiful spell, Eshvareth could tell, even though it increased xir sense of the uncanny the further xie went. This whole place was built of magic, though, and the uncanny came alongside that. So Eshvareth let it go, focused on xir goal, and kept walking, descending into the Fleshcrafter’s innermost sphere.

At last, the spiral opened up to reveal a giant pearlescent bubble thrice Eshvareth’s height. Xie studied it from outside, trying to see what it hid, before giving up with a shrug and stepping through the translucent wall. Probably xie would be able to breathe in there, even though it seemed like water; if Ichtheia wanted xir dead, she’d had plenty of chances to do so.

The bubble’s wall parted around xir, and Eshvareth floated in the warm fluid within. Automatically, xie held xir breath, looking around for any sign of air.

“It won’t harm you, little pebble.”

Eshvareth gasped, in shock more than anything else, as the voice rumbled all around xir, setting the fluid astir.

It slid down xir throat, into xir windpipe, and there was a moment it felt like xie was going to choke before blessedly pure air—crisp and clean as the mountaintops Eshvareth hadn’t stood upon for a year—flooded xir lungs.

“Thank you,” Eshvareth said to Ichtheia for the third time, and this time xie was able to see her.

Ichtheia Fleshcrafter was, as Eshvareth had been told, a mer.

She was giant, the size of a hill herself, and covered in a chitinous shell. Her tail wrapped around the bubble Eshvareth floated within, and her humanoid face was taller than Eshvareth xirself.

 _Old_ , the legends said. _Vast_ , the stories proclaimed. _Awful, awe-inspiring_ , pilgrims added.

None of them had quite explained that Ichtheia Fleshcrafter wasn’t the mammalian kind of mer Eshvareth was familiar with, but something closer to a lobster twisted into human-ish shape with eyes dark as an eclipse and skin hard as granite.

Eshvareth bowed, or tried to; it was difficult when floating in water. “This pilgrim is honored to meet you, Fleshcrafter,” xie said in Ternish. “May this one continue speaking in this one’s native tongue?”

“Your language doesn’t have space for you,” Ichtheia said, also in Ternish.

Eshvareth winced. _You_ was gendered in Ternish—most nouns were—into sky and stone, and Ichtheia had used both forms for xir, one after the other. It was correct; at least, it was more correct than most other solutions, when the answer Eshvareth had settled on for xirself wasn’t acknowledged save by those xie had taught it to.

That was the blessing of magic, xie supposed, and also why xie was here.

“It is still my language,” Eshvareth said. “Tradetongue collapses all those spaces, and still leaves no room for me.”

Ichtheia shifted, rolling the bubble around in her hands. “You’re an interesting one.”

That time, she’d left the word ungendered and incomplete; a child’s solution, a fool’s answer, a myth’s right. Eshvareth drew in a deep breath, trying not to show fear at the strange sensation, and said, “I came to you for a reason, Fleshcrafter. Can you help me?”

“Your people have their own magics, as do the elves and humans who walk the land. Yet you came here, to the sea.” The idle tone Ichtheia had taken sharpened, all her power put into the final word: “Why?”

“Mountains change slowly, and the sky changes constantly,” Eshvareth said, because xie had had a long time to think about this. “My people’s rituals are for the spirit, not the form. Human spirits burn too quick and bright, and their technology would carve away what I hold dear. Elves grow, and gather, and cultivate their shapes from birth; they do not understand my pain, and their fruits do not work on my flesh. No, the sea’s ever-changing transformations and willingness to hold opposing harmonies is what I seek.”

Ichtheia was silent for a long time, studying xir with her polished eyes. Eshvareth did xir best to gaze back, unflinching, and waited for her verdict.

“Very well,” Ichtheia said, and her voice rolled through the bubble and Eshvareth’s bones alike. “You are here, and you are certain. Remember this, child of the peaks: What I give cannot be rescinded. You will be changed, and you must live with it. Do you accept?”

“I do,” Eshvareth said, and there was no way to tell if there were tears in xir eyes.

Ichtheia spoke a single syllable, powerful as the tides, and Eshvareth’s world went dark for a moment.

When xir eyes opened again, xie was on the shore.

Eshvareth stood, and felt flesh move between xir legs where none had previously been, felt the lessened pressure along xir chest. Xie touched xirself, at first tentative and then relieved to find that xir chest remained, just smaller than it had been.

This time, Eshvareth could feel the joyous tears in xir eyes, and xie turned to the water. “Thank you,” xie said, and bowed; again and again and again until the tears had all fallen, xir own saltwater offering to the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> It doesn't come up in the text, but Ichtheia is a trans woman; she's just so old nobody knows that she's trans. It's how/why she started being called Fleshcrafter to begin with: The first body she changed was her own.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Some Notes on Grammatical Gender in Ternish:
> 
> Sky and Stone as genders do not match to the sexes at all.  
> Sky gender implies creation/creativity, movement/changeability, young/youthful.  
> Stone gender implies stability/stillness, strength/endurance, age/history.
> 
> In Ternish, all children are referred to by Sky gender, all elders are referred to by Stone gender, and adults get shoved into a category based on personality/vocation.  
> Vocations associated with Sky gender include: Diplomacy, creative arts, merchants/traders, explorers/travelers, athletes, hunters.  
> Vocations associated with Stone gender include: Construction workers, educators, religious figures, town leaders, farmers, soldiers.
> 
> Eshvareth would be normally referred to grammatically with sky-gender, because xie went out and left xir home. Eshvareth didn't have a conception of being wrong-gendered until being exposed to other languages/cultures where it was an option, just knew that sky and stone both felt sort of right and sort of wrong. At this point, if you were to ask xir, Eshvareth would say xie wished there was a gender for water; something fluid but more steadier than the sky.
> 
> (It's probably why xie went to Ichtheia, in the end.)


End file.
